Always Up for a Challenge

Using commercial fabrics has added an interesting complexity to my work that I didn’t expect. Sometimes, a fabric works great in the auditioning — and then bombs in the piece — because of the tightness & regularity of the pattern relative to the size of the pieces cut out for the face. I have been building a new face in the last few days — and have been playing with her mouth quite a bit this morning. I thought the in-process pictures would be interesting. (Keep in mind that all of these are taken on a flat table — so there is some camera distortion in these pics.) I always love to see the life grow under my fingers when I work.

This is the base laid out:

This is the face with a little more detail added:

Here I’ve added detail to the eye on the left:

And here I’ve completed the 2nd eye on the right:

This was one of the mouths that I did. I wasn’t happy with how it came out from the original pattern I drew, so I grabbed my Sharpie and scissors and started working away:

This is the mouth as it is now. I’m fairly happy with it — although I may change it when I make final adjustments:

Now I’m off to work on her hair. She is a blond — so this is a new challenge for me. I think I have it all in my stash though — amazing what you can find in that closet if you just search hard enough through the bins.